Blogging works! Just interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor

Just had a lengthy interview with SCM and article should come out Wednesday. Because I've been blogging my book, Who Killed Emmett Till, the reporter called on a story she's writing about civil rights education in Mississippi. The interview lasted about an hour and I was able to give her lots of history and background. Fingers are crossed!


Meanwhile, post 16 is up.

Mississippi Delta civil rights leader, Aaron Henry, was a frequent target of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, an agency quickly organized after the murder of Emmett Till to spy on integration activities and spread good will about the state. Henry, a friend of Drew attorney Cleve McDowell, died a natural death in his Clarksdale home on May 19, 1997. McDowell, also a target of the Commission, was not so fortunate; he was murdered at his home in 1997. (Photo from the University of Mississippi archives.)


Cleve McDowell, Murdered and Nearly Forgotten in Mississippi
By Susan Klopfer


Cleve McDowell didn’t believe it. He knew Henry Mims too well.

But told his friend committed suicide, the Delta lawyer’s mojo kicked in and McDowell drove to Montgomery, Alabama, speeding the 380-miles to do the obvious.

It was easy enough to maneuver himself around the funeral home and find Mims’s body, to check out the story.

From nearly three decades of practicing civil rights and public defense law, assessing what happened to Mims would not – and did not – take more than a few moments alone with the corpse.

Back home in Drew, McDowell told his friend Rev. Jesse Grisham he’d found Mims with bruises and broken fingers. "There were signs of torture,” he said.

Mims was found hanging from the garage ceiling with a ladder under his body, the widow told McDowell, but from her description, Mcdowell knew the ladder wasn’t far enough from the floor to make sense.

“Cleve wanted to talk when he got back to Drew,” Grisham said. But the conversation took a new direction when McDowell asked the minister to promise he would conduct McDowell’s funeral when the time arrived.

“..And he meant it," Gresham said.

"I thought he was kidding at first, and I told him I would be dying before him since I'm quite a bit older. But he was serious and he looked scared. Grisham tried to make sense of his friend’s request, and asked McDowell if he knew what happened to Mims.

McDowell was blunt. Mims didn’t kill himself; the story had to be a cover, he told Grisham.

“I asked Cleve if he knew who did it. He said 'yes,' and then looked down and said nothing else."

To Grisham’s sorrow, he had to honor his friend’s request and the former blues musician played for McDowell’s funeral five years later, after McDowell was murdered at home.
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continued ... Who Killed Emmett Till?